As a country, we appear to have learned absolutely nothing from the débâcle that was the 2000 presidential election. As a group of friends, we have learned something. Never again will any of us be naïve enough to say the following:

"You know, we should just drink until the election's decided."

1. My current read, Booth Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons," is proving to be one of the most delightful literary exhibitions of schadenfreude I've ever had the pleasure to read. I'm about a third of the way through, and I know that the lead character is going to get everything he deserves: to wit, nothing at all.
2. While we'll miss Sex And The City, we'd like to note that the characters depicted in the show, despite protestations to the contrary, bear as much resemblance to the rest of humanity as a soap opera about mutant Prada-wearing cockroaches.

Since I have received my official notification from the Federal Office of the Executive Cluebat (motto: "We can beat sense into anyone") that the actual beginning of this war means that the purpose of most anti-war statements - "don't go to war!" - has been rendered null and void, it seems that we must find something else to talk about.

Failing that, this is what you get.

So, let me get this straight - instead of "French fries," they're "Freedom Fries" now because those dastardly French have the temerity to disagree with Dubya's cowboy brinksmanship disguised as foreign policy?

Freedom fries? Freedom toast?
Freedom fries? Freedom toast?
FREEDOM FRIES? FREEDOM frelling TOAST?

In case no one else in this country stops snoring and bothers to say it, let me jump around and yell a bit in the hopes that someone will hear it:

Greetings from Huntsville, your latest source of American workplace shootings.

Pass the chicken.

There's nothing quite like waking up one morning to learn that your adopted hometown is the news event of the day. "Four men dead in workplace shooting; police say that the gunman is holed up in some..." ... unnamed apartment building that's apparently over on my side of town.

On this Election Day I come to you out of sorrow, fear, and this growing urge to register nothing but a protest vote. Geof has reminded me that I can choose to not vote on whichever races I don't feel are worthy of my vote, and suddenly my ballot begins to take on worlds of new sarcastic meaning.

Dear Friends,